The Review Magazine : May-June 2022

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE DANIEL P. GILMARTIN

I magine this: It is 35,000 years ago, and some Paleolithic Banksy is placing his hand on a smooth rock wall, then blowing a cloud of red ochre pigment over it to leave a simple, stenciled image of a human hand. Tens of thousands of years later, the Cave of Altamira in northern Spain will forever link the appearance of art to Homo sapiens, bearing testimony to their way of life, their beliefs, and their absolute humanity. Picasso himself will famously declare that all art created since “is decadence.” Now that is the power of art in placemaking. No doubt about it, municipalities are scrambling to cover all the bases. When a multitude of needs are competing for every public dollar, why should government support the arts? Consider it an investment in your community’s future. The arts aren’t just a pretty face. They are economic drivers that create jobs and produce tax revenue. They enrich the small business sector and help drive tourism. They are valuable assets to education and contribute to people’s mental and emotional health. The arts create a sense of place and help forge a unique identity for a community. Art helps create vibrant, welcoming, and desirable places to work, visit, and live. The arts are like gravity and magnetism—powerful forces attracting people and commerce. Art can even help communities recover from hardship and economic adversity. Consider it therapy for a whole population. Community art projects are a way for residents to express their dreams, work out their struggles, and build a shared sense of identity and belonging. Anyone who’s toured the Detroit Mural Project can attest to the power of art to uplift an entire city…or the way the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. helped an entire nation to heal. Some might argue that art should be the responsibility of the private sector, and only matters to big cities and the cultural elite. Some critics decry any public support at all for the arts, proclaiming it another system of welfare handouts that enables mediocre art and artists, much like a doting but clueless parent endlessly paying for a talentless child’s piano lessons—a “survival of the fittest” paradigm based on the logic that in a harsher, dog-eat-dog environment, only the best and truest art will (i.e., “should”) thrive. The Arts Can Forge a Unique Community Identity

I would respectfully counter that this notion of art misses the whole point. Arts and culture are one of the main pillars of community wealth building and should be inclusive and accessible to everyone. Without public support, there is a risk that low-income groups and sparsely populated regions will lack the resources of privately funded efforts. Not every city is fortunate enough to host an ArtPrize. That’s why we think you’ll be blown away by our cover story on The Power of Words Project UPlift, an artistic tour de force that is slowly but surely spreading across the Upper Peninsula to breathe new life and creativity into our northernmost municipalities. It’s a brilliant example of how art can be part of a solid rural development strategy. (And, incidentally, the artist just happens to be an Iron Mountain native who is a two-time ArtPrize winner.) In fact, art is helping to build community wealth all over the state. Elsewhere in this issue you’ll see how Lansing’s ArtPath is helping to transform blighted areas. You’ll learn how Madison Heights created a strolling music festival as a solution to social distancing, and how high school students brainstormed Hoop Skirt Alley as a Junior Main Street initiative in Charlevoix. We have also featured another community wealth building asset—lifelong learning. See MML Board Member and Troy Councilwoman Rebecca Chamberlain-Creangă’s journey in supporting the people of Ukraine. By the time you turn the last page, we think you’ll be as convinced as we are that arts and culture are essential elements for the future health and prosperity of our communities. Speaking of our communities’ futures, I’d like to give a shout-out to everyone who participated in this year’s CapCon. After a two-year hiatus, it was truly inspiring to see so many of you gather with renewed enthusiasm and commitment to helping Michigan’s municipalities move forward into the future. We hope you came away feeling empowered and inspired by the partnerships and policies that will fuel the community revival we all envision. So now let’s get to work. The future is ours to create.

Daniel P. Gilmartin League Executive Director and CEO 734.669.6302; dpg@mml.org

MAY / JUNE 2022

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THE REVIEW